Just popping a bit of fresnel multiplied with the diffuse in the emissive channel is a simple trick, using a very small number will basically nullify it sunlight, but will make it pop a bit more in shadow. Cheaty and not correct, but works decently.
Thanks everyone for the kind words! I'm extremely excited and ready to get started. It's really cool seeing a lot of these threads popping up lately and I hope they continue to pop up even more in the future.
Yep that's max. You can also create lava bubbles that pops by creating a hemisphere. Then create a lava texture with a roughed up opacity around the top, animate the UVs so they move vertically and the bubble will pop.
Also, i think your props could be better presented. Try to work some on the lighting, and try to make the assets pop more, kind of hard to make them pop with just a solid grey background.
Hi! While I don't use Maya, you can probably animate the UV offset in the material to achieve that panning effect. When searching for "Maya animate UV offset", this old thread popped up Maya UV texture scrolling.